2015 AGM — Annual General Meeting / AGA 2015 — Assemblée générale annuelle

President’s Report / Rapport du président

I am happy to report another strong year of CEC projects with some new developments in JTTP, five new CDs in the Cache series that are either already out or soon-to-be available, and some very exciting news for eContact!

eContact!

Since my last report at the 2014 AGM, the following issues of eContact!, the CEC’s online journal for electroacoustics, have been published:

16.2 — Sound Art and Interactivity in Singapore: SI13 and More, with Guest Editor PerMagnus Lindborg
16.3 — TES 2013: Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium
16.4 — Experimental Practices and Subversion in Sound, with Guest Editor Karin Weissenbrunner
17.1 — Jeu de temps / Times Play 2014

The journal reflects the CEC’s commitment to the support of a diverse range of interests — such as local communities in Canada and abroad, and young and emerging composers — and our broad and inclusive definition of the term “electroacoustics”. This can be seen in recently published issues, as well as those that are next in line for publication, with the following topics: Hugh Le Caine (eContact! 17.2), TIES 2014 (17.3), Analogue and Digital Modular Music (17.4) coordinated by Guest Editor Richard Scott, and JTTP 2015 (18.1).

The journal will be moved to the domain <econtact.ca> soon; I will talk more about this in a moment.

JTTP

The results of JTTP 2015, the 16th edition of the annual Jeu de temps / Times Play project, will be released publicly this fall, and will be published in eContact! 18.1. But I am happy to be able to let you know the results.

1. Xavier Madore — Récit d’un presqu’aller-retour (2014 / 8:45)
2. Charles-Philippe Tremblay-Begin — Valsalva (2014 / 7:30)
3. Guillaume Campion — Littorale (2015 / 45:02), acousmatic documentary
4. Myriam Boucher — Cités (2015 / 10:34), videomusic
5. Devon Hansen — Habitation (2015 / 5:30)

In recent years, jef chippewa has been building partnerships with important international contacts in order to present winning works from each year’s edition of JTTP in various Canadian and international contexts. In addition to the broadcasts of JTTP and Cache works each year, since 2013, Akousma presents the First Prize composer of each edition of JTTP in their fall festival in Montréal.

In February 2015, all six winners (there was a tie for 5th place) travelled to Seia, Portugal, where the CEC was invited by Dias de Música Electroacústica (DME) to collaborate on the 21st DME festival: the CEC was invited to coordinate the entire three-day programme! There was a JTTP concert, a concert of videomusic works curated by Joseph Hyde (who also wrote the editorial for eContact! 15.4 — Videomusic) and a concert of EA miniatures curated by jef chippewa.

In late September, the 2015 winners are travelling to Berlin (Germany) as guests of Kontakte! ’15 (from 25–27 September), an international festival for electronic music and sound art. The festival is produced by the Akademie der Künste and features loudspeaker concerts, hacker events, a round table, artist portraits and sound installations. Keep an eye on the CEC’s Facebook page for information on the JTTP 2015 concert (Sunday, 27 September at 11:30 a.m.) and other JTTP events over the year.

We would like to extend thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec and the Concordia University Music Department for the financial support (Travel Grants etc.) they have kindly offered to our JTTP 2014 and 2015 winners to attend these festivals and present their work.

These international contexts are an excellent opportunity for these young and emerging composers and we are pleased to be able to help bring the music of the emerging generation of electroacoustic composers in Canada to these international contexts, through collaborations with such supportive and enthusiastic partners as Akousma, Dias de Música Electroacústica and Kontakte!

Cache CD

This past year we got caught up on the backlogged production of five editions of Cache, the CD component of Jeu de temps / Times Play. Cache 2010 and Cache 2011 were mailed out to CD participants, CEC members and JTTP jury members in January. Cache 2012, Cache 2013 and Cache 2014 are also ready and will be released in early fall. So CEC Members should keep an eye on their mailboxes for that.

Other Projects

SONUS.ca

Plans for an upgrade to SONUS discussed at last year’s AGM have been put on pause as we catch up on delayed publication of eContact! issues and put in place a major website upgrade during the 2014–15 fiscal year.

New eContact! Website

Over the course of the past year, Yves Gigon has made superhuman efforts to improve the look, interface and design of the eContact! area of the CEC’s website. An immense amount of work went into restructuring the pages and upgrading the style sheets to bring everything in line with the most recent web standard, HTML5. The site looks fantastic, is more easily navigable, and has a distinct and elegant appearance. Huge thanks are due to Yves for the immense success of the work he has done.

Once the new site is launched, the journal will be available at the address <econtact.ca> and will be integrated seamlessly with the rest of the CEC site, which will remain on <cec.sonus.ca>. Key pages on the CEC’s site have been upgraded to the new standards as well, and as time and budget permit, the rest of the site will also be remodelled.

The release of the new website is planned for September 10 and we are very much looking forward to being able to inform CEC members and the larger public when it goes live. The issue featuring contributions from TIES 2014 will be released at that time.

TIES

The CEC is very happy to again collaborate with New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) on this 9th edition of the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium, with Keynote Speaker Nicolas Collins. Last year the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) joined the team to help out and this year as one of the symposium’s co-presenters also offered crucial assistance in the planning and organization of the event. Many thanks are due to NAISA — particularly to Nadene Thériault-Copeland and Darren Copeland — and to Matthew Fava from the CMC for their diligent, sustained efforts to raise the profile of electroacoustic activities in Toronto in this annual event. This year I have stepped up to take on some of the huge responsibilities that TIES’ chair Emilie LeBel held until 2014. She has recently moved to Montana for professional reasons and we wish her the best in her new activities and are thankful for the three years of excellent stewardship she has brought to the symposium.

Social Media

At the 2014 AGM, CEC Member Michael Palumbo made some very concrete suggestions about how the CEC could improve their activities on social media. Following up on his suggestions, the Board decided to establish a new position of Social Media Manager and invited Michael to be the first to occupy this position, which can be renewed annually. Since January he has given fantastic impetus to the CEC’s Twitter account, where he is extremely active in bringing various people into conversations around topics related directly and indirectly to the CEC’s activities.

CEC Board

We are happy to welcome Joseph Hyde as the newest member of the CEC’s Board of Directors. Joseph brings a range of experiences and talents to the Board. In addition to his artistic work as a musician and composer, he is a lecturer and writer and since 2009 runs the Seeing Sound Symposium at Bath Spa University (UK). We are greatly looking forward to having him on the CEC Board.

The CEC Board for the 2015–16 fiscal year is as follows [years indicate current terms]:

President: Eldad Tsabary (Montréal) 2014–16
Vice-President: Carey Dodge (Vancouver) 2015–17
Secretary: Jean Routhier (Vancouver) 2015–17
Treasurer: Shawn Pinchbeck (Edmonton) 2014–16
Members at Large: Laurie Radford (Calgary) 2014–16, Emilie LeBel (Toronto) 2015–17, Joseph Hyde (Bath UK) 2015–17.

In Closing

The CEC has thrived for 29 years as Canada’s national organization of electroacoustic music, through radical changes in technology, artistic practices, funding infrastructure, without a doubt due to its sound foundation, very capable management, and impeccable neutrality and inclusiveness. Remaining the CEC’s principles of operation, these traits will assure its continuing success.

I wish to extend warm thanks to CEC members for their continuing support and involvement financially, through social media and mailing lists, through being a community of artists, researchers, educators, students, and through all other forms of engagement.

I want to thank the members of the Board of Directors for their volunteer-based work, engagement, collaborativeness and integrity.

I and I want to extend huge thanks to the CEC administrators jef chippewa and Yves Gigon, who are the heart and lungs — and many other important organs — of the CEC.

And finally, thank you to all attendees of this AGM in physical and online presence.

Eldad Tsabary
President of the CEC Board
Toronto, Thursday, 22 August 2015

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